Tullow discloses first income tax payment to Ghana in 2013

Tullow discloses first income tax payment to Ghana in 2013

LONDON (Bloomberg) -- Tullow Oil Plc’s government payment disclosure revealed it paid income tax for the first time in Ghana last year after recovering part of investment in its largest project.

The producer, which pumps about 100,000 bopd from the Jubilee field offshore Ghana, paid about $107 million in income tax, or about half of all the money it remitted to the government, according to its annual report. Total payments to nations rose 25% to $870.4 million last year from a year ago, driven by projects in Kenya, Ivory Coast and Equatorial Guinea.

“In 2012, we acted ahead of regulatory developments and published our tax and other payments to governments and other major stakeholders,” Tullow said in the report. This year it stepped up its transparency effort by disclosing payments on a project-by-project basis and providing more details such as royalties and other taxes.

The company, based in London, has been leading the initiative for companies to give details about their payments to governments, part of a worldwide effort to combat corruption, according to Global Witness, a UK advocacy group. Tullow, which is pumping most of its oil in Africa, started reporting before a European Union directive requires the information in 2015.

The company’s payments to Uganda fell to about $23 million last year from $174.7 million in 2012. That year, Tullow had to pay $141.8 million part of the capital gain tax claimed by the government on the sale of interests in oil fields to Total SA and CNOOC Ltd. Tullow said on Feb. 12 it was disputing the charge.